Folia Historico-Naturalia Musei Matraensis - A Mátra Múzeum Természetrajzi Közleményei 13. (1988)

SZATHMÁRY, L.: The Boreal (Mesolithic) peopling in the Carpathian Basin: the role of the peripheries

only the northeastern and northwestern regions from which we have had positive proof for the Carpathian Basin having neon an intesivsly populated territory .just before the Atlantic. Moreover, these two regions also represent disjunct areas. At the bottom of this influence of the dynamics of the former and the contemporaneous outside of the Carpathian Basin may presumably have worked (KOZtOWSKI J.K. and KOZtOWSKI S.K. 1979, MATSKEVOÍ 1987a, STGCZKOWSKI 1937). This factor may also play a great part in the judgement of the autochtony of the early Atlantic (early Neolithic) cultures (cf. SZATHMÁRY 1932a, 1982b, 1984). Moreover, also the relatively autonomous development of the northern periphery (desserted an eastern and a western part) can be estimated. The southern periphery may not have afforded good opportunity for settling in this period. Populations may have been rather drawn northward out of the central plain. That is why actually significant population historical hiatus may have been effected between the northern and the southern peripheries of the central plain of the Carpathian Basin. 3) PALAEOECOLOGICAL EVIDENCES The tendencies of the environmental changes preceding the Boreal are worthy of being looked over from the direction of the Balkans for the post-Pleistocene alterations can be pointed out from times earlier there. According to vegatational-historical analyses the presence of dry and warm steppe can be reconstructed in Thessaly in the 11th and 10th millennia B. C. (JACOBSEN 1974, BOTTEMA 1974). This condition can be registrated even in the region of the Lower Danube (LEROIGOURHAN et al. 1967, MATTEESCO and PROTOPOPESCU-PAKE 1968-69), however, even in later times, it cannot be discerned at all in such refuges as, for instance, the Iron Gate region, which provided greater chances for successions free of confrontations (cf. BÖKÖNYI 1969, 1972, 1976, 1978, GIGOV 1969, 1972, POP et al. 1970, CÂRCIUMARU 1971, 1973a, 1973b, 1973c, 1973, MISIC et al. 1972, BOLOMEY 1973a, 1973b, CSRCIUMARU and PÄUNESCU 1975, CLASON 1930). In the Carpathian Basin, however, the process of the thickening of close forests gathered momentum under cooler and drier climate conditions in the Preboreal period. In the mountainous parts it was the pine and the birch species first of all that dominated in the plant associations, while in the central plain continental steppes with scattered forest areas emerged (ZÓLYOMI 1952, 1958, JÁRAI-K0MLÓDI 1966, 1968, 1982). In the Boreal starting from the 7th millenium B. C. there ensued a turning-point in climatehistory during which xerophilous vegetation occupied the plains in the region north of the DunaSzáva line. This warming up meagre in rainfall was equally favourable to the development of xerophilous deciduous forests (Quercus, Tilia, Ulmus). According to ZÓLYOMI (1952, 1953, 1958, 1964)

's pollen-spectra of prime importance the increase of their proportion was accompanied by the decrease in the proportion of the Pinus. In the plain territories the succession promoted the emergence of climate-zonal steppe. In the peripheries, however, changes took place more moderately. They may have been more slow and more conservative and may not have represented so significant change in the vegetational history as in the plain (ANDREÁNSZKY 1954, S0Ó 1959, L0ÍEK 1967, 1980, CÂRCIUMARU 1971, 1973a, 1973b, 1973, 1934, POP et al. 1970, PXUNESCU 1979, PÄUNESCU et al. 1976, KORDOS 1901a, 1931c, CHAPMAN 1931, BERGLUND 1906, KRIPPEL 1906). The swampy areas in the central plain became shallow, dried out, as it is shown by the missing of pollen-analitical phase V (CSINÁDY 1954, 1959, 1960, B0RSY-né and B0RSY 1955, V0ZÁRY 1957, ZÓLYOMI 1953, MIHÁLTZ and MIHÁLTZ-FARAGÓ 1965, JÁRAIK0MLÓDI 1966, 1960). According to SOŐ's phytogeographical observations (S0Ó 1931, 1959, 1965) the forests were charcteristic of the tide lands and the peripheries only in the central plain (Populeto-Salicetum and Quercato-Ulmetum)

. In the expanded and unintermitted steppe areas (Stipa-Festuca-Chrysopogon) mixed oak-forests which were actually peculiar to the Atlantic could also develop (JÁRAI-K0MLÓDI 1969, 1971, 1902). The results of the faunistical examinations regarding the Boreal cannot be generalized. Palaeozoological observations refer to a warmer and drier climate than the former had been (KRETZOI 1957, 1969, 3ÖKÖNYI 1962. 1969, 1972, 1976, 1977, 1978, RÄDULESCU and SAMSON 1962, KRETZ0I and VÉRTES 1965, BOLOMEY 1973a, 1973b, JÁN0SSY and KORDOS 1976, KORDOS 1977a, 1977b, 1979, 1981a, 1981b, 1931c, FŰKÖH 1979, 1980, 1937, CLASON 1980, VÖRÖS 1981, 1937, KR0I 0PP and VÖRÖS 1982, FŰKÖH and KROLOPP 1985, WULMS 1987). The last important sand-blows in the plain, namely in the Nyírség and in the territory between the rivers Danube and Tisza, also happened in the Boreal. These regions must not have exercised long-lasting attraction to the contemporary populations (SÜMEGHY 1955, KÁDÁR 1956, B0RSY 1961, 1965, 1963, 1971, 1977, 1980, 1985, 1907, MAROSI 1967, BHRSY et al. 1901, 1982a, 1932b, NAGY J.-né 1982, SOMOGYI 1982, 1984). The post-Pleistocene hydrogeographic alterations comprised two essential factors. One was the sinking of the marginal territories of the Hungarian Great Plain (namely, Szatmár, Jászság, Bodrogköz, Rétköz), and the rising of the water-parting area of the Nyírség. The other factor was the westward shift of the Danube-bed. At the beginning the river Tisza only left